Corrinna Pauley with her daughter Demi-Leigh
Mum-of-six Corrinna Pauley just wants her children to see her walk.
The Omagh woman is bedridden with agonising back pain, taking 40 pills a day to control it.
Corrinna hoped a complicated back operation in January 2013 would finally give her back her life.
But screws inserted along her vertebrae have come loose and she has been on an emergency surgery list since last November.
Another op last month was cancelled minutes before she was due to go into theatre and now it will be months before she even has a provisional place on a surgery list.
The 35-year-old says going public about her plight is a last resort, but she’s desperate to end the agony which has meant her youngest children have never seen her walk.
A litany of lost files, infection and a shortage of high dependency beds have left her unable to move and with no option but to plead for help.
The last time she tried to leave her home with devoted husband Charlie, anxious not to miss her son in his first school play it was such a disaster it still causes her regret.
“I had to be wheeled out three times in the first few minutes to be sick because of the pain. I couldn’t miss my son’s first speaking part in a play, but I felt like I’d shown my children up,” says Corrinna.
“My seven-year-old doesn’t remember me walking. She has asked me ‘mummy did you ever walk’. I just hope it’s not too late to fix me.”
Corrinna was a busy mum who had found happiness again with Charlie after being widowed at just 23 with three children, Courtney, now 15, Dylan, 14 and 12 year old Leah.
With Charlie, a digger driver, she is also mum to seven year old Billy Joe, Cameron, 5, and Demi-Leigh, 4.
In 2009 Corrinna discovered she’d been born with spina bifida, and a year later she began to suffer from severe and debilitating back pain.
After being prescribed increasingly heavy doses of painkillers the couple paid privately for an MRI scan in Sligo which showed three slipped discs.
The Royal Victoria Hospital received the results of the €275 scan, but then lost them.
Corrinna attended a pain clinic, and received a painkilling injection into her spine, but that wore off within three months.
Charlie had already had to give up his job of 17 years to care for their children because his wife was in so much pain.
The couple paid again for a €600 3D scan in a Dublin sports injury clinic which showed the deterioration of her spine, and sent a copy to the RVH.
Two months later the young mum made the painful journey to the Belfast hospital for an appointment for a similar scan, despite her insistence that it was unnecessary because she had already supplied an MRI. At the last minute the hospital agreed, meaning she’d made the 140 miles round trip for nothing.
In January 2013 she eventually had surgery at Musgrave Park Hospital when two rods and four screws were inserted in her back.
Corrinna was told to expect a 12 month recovery, and had high hopes that she would soon be back on her feet, but within three weeks she developed an infection and had to return to have the surgery site reopened and flushed out.
She went home after a week and within a few months the young mum was able to walk to her kitchen on a Zimmer frame. But by last summer she knew something was wrong when the agonising pain returned.
An X-ray showed nothing was wrong, but when she insisted on further investigation an MRI showed the screws in her back had come loose.
“In November I was put on an emergency surgery list, and waited until May. How long do you wait if you’re not an emergency,” she says.
“We were told the delay was because there are only six high dependency beds so they can only operate on so many people.
“I was ready to go into surgery in May – a nurse came and told me it would only be a few minutes. Then they told me my white cell count was too high and I couldn’t have the operation that day.
“The last three or four times I’ve been up to the hospital it’s been by ambulance. I don’t know if they understand how difficult it is for me to go anywhere.
“The next date is for August, but that’s not definite and who knows whether that will go ahead.”
Corrinna’s painkiller intake has already affected her bladder and she requires a catheter, as well as daily visits from a nurse, which helps keep her spirits up.
But the most heart-breaking toll has been on her children.
“My five-year-old says to me when you get your back fixed will you come on your bike with me. They come up to the window so I can see them on their bikes.
“It’s so, so hard. My youngest is epileptic and if she had a fit in front of me I couldn’t move to help her.
“If I had the Health Minister in front of me I’d just ask him to get the hospitals sorted because this is the effect it has on people's lives,” says Corrinna.
Ulster Unionist Councillor Bert Wilson, who has been supporting the family, says urgent action needs to be taken to help Corrinna
“I have known this family for years and I know she has been working with the medical staff.
“Charlie has had to give up his job after 17 years. If this is how urgent cases are dealt with it’s just not good enough,” says Councillor Wilson.
In a comment the Belfast Trust said it cannot duscuss any patient’s past or future treatment.
“However we regret if this patient feels let down in any way by the care she has received and we would be happy to speak to her directly to discuss any concerns.
All surgery carries a degree of risk and all likely outcomes and risks are discussed beforehand. Even with successful spinal surgery there can be no guarantee that it will provide complete pain relief and there is a risk that pain will remain afterwards.
Following spinal surgery some patients may require follow up surgery and this is also made clear ahead of their procedure,” it says.